First Nations undergrad wins student essay literary prize

By Christine Lyons

Indigenous undergraduate Melanie Mercer won top prize in the 2018 Blue Metropolis student literary competition for a powerful letter she wrote about being adopted and raised by white parents of European descent.

Mercer wrote Dearest Canada: A Letter from Your Daughter for an assignment in First Nations Studies 222: Introduction to Public Policy. Jeannie Morgan, the instructor, submitted the essay to Blue Metropolis, which also sponsors a First Peoples Literary Prize.

Mercer says she is “honoured and humbled” to receive such recognition for her writing. In the letter she explains how, despite being well-cared-for by adoptive parents who encouraged her to have pride in her Indigenous roots, many of her closest family cannot “fathom the depths of [Indigenous peoples’] confusion or the tears in our hearts.”

Mercer first came to study First Nations Studies at SFU in 2016 at the suggestion of a counsellor who felt learning Indigenous history and literature at university would be important for Mercer’s healing.

“Post-secondary education has purely been a journey of discovery for myself as an adopted, Indigenous woman,” she says.

While her letter has given her adoptive parents insight into her daily struggles, she says, “I hope that my writing can help others see that this history is not in the distant past with distant consequences. It is around us every day, affecting everyday people who are just trying their best to find a way to belong in Canada.”

To read her letter, visit http://at.sfu.ca/WtfOgP